


Cloak and Needle

by turtle_paced



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-06-23
Updated: 2016-02-10
Packaged: 2018-04-05 19:05:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 16,063
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4191459
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/turtle_paced/pseuds/turtle_paced
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Barristan Selmy spots the Hand’s second daughter at the Hand’s execution.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. To Pentos

**Author's Note:**

> I wasn't going to post this until I was done with the entire thing, but my co-conspirator briarbadger has had a bad day (and I'm terminally lacking in discipline anyhow). This one's for her. It's possibly the happiest ASoIaF fic I've ever written (which isn't saying much), and the only content notes I have are for canonical character death and my inability to keep timelines straight. If you notice a mistake, please forgive me.

What drew him to the Great Sept, Barristan couldn’t rightly say. He had no business with the king anymore. Not this king, who as Stark had said, was no true king at all. Yet this morning Stark was supposed to confess his treason for all of King’s Landing to hear.

Treason didn’t sound like the Eddard Stark that Barristan knew. Not treason, nor a false confession. He had no idea what the Queen Regent had in mind. So he went to the Great Sept like most everyone else, drifting along the streets and up Visenya’s Hill. Unshaven, dressed in grey and brown, with only a stave for a weapon, he looked nothing like the Lord Commander of the Kingsguard – and Barristan had to admit, he didn’t even feel like that man at the moment. He had no king to serve and protect. He needed a king. 

He would not have any soft prison north of Lannisport. Even the memory of the words made him fume. He would not go gently to his grave a Lannister stooge. He would _not_.

The plaza was already crowded when he finally arrived, though the royal party was not yet present. The bells were ringing, though, and Selmy shoved his way forward, to a position just behind the statue of Baelor. He wouldn’t have the best view of proceedings, but he would hear, and behind the statue, he was much less likely to be recognised. A ragged urchin boy pushed past him as the royal party filed out, climbing the statue itself for a better view. _So eager._ In his youth, Barristan might have done the same.

When they brought him out, Lord Stark looked terrible, a fact that no new direwolf doublet could hide. His leg must not have healed – and yes, there, Barristan could see a rotted cast around his wound. He doubted Stark would ever walk without a limp again, even if he survived to let it heal properly. More likely the wound would fester and kill him that way.

This wasn’t right. In more ways than one.

Surely the Lannisters needed Lord Stark as a hostage. Lord Eddard’s heir would not be pleased to find how his father had been mistreated. Boy he might be, but he already had an army in the field and was marching south, while surely Stannis Baratheon was planning his own war, and the gods alone knew what Renly thought he was up to.

Though as he looked at Lord Stark’s smiling elder daughter, he realised that there was not to be an execution here today. _Thank the gods._ Lord Stark would give his likely-false confession, accept some sort of bargain, and the North, at least, would stay out of the coming war.

Lord Stark’s voice started weak as he began his confession, and the crowd called for him to speak up. “I come before you to confess my treason in the sight of gods and men,” Stark shouted. “I betrayed the faith of my king and the trust of my friend Robert. I swore to defend and protect his children, yet before his blood was cold, I plotted to depose and murder his son and seize the throne for myself.” 

That wasn’t true. Barristan had seen Robert’s will. It had been written in Stark’s hand, to be sure, but it had said that Stark was the lawful regent. Not the Queen. Perhaps Stark had forged the will, but Barristan found it unlikely. The former Hand was not such a man. Besides, King Robert had thought of nobody more highly than Eddard Stark; if he had been lucid to name a Regent, he would have named Stark, not Cersei Lannister.

Above all else, Barristan doubted that Stark would order the murder of a child. 

“Let the High Septon and Baelor the Beloved and the Seven bear witness to the truth of what I say: Joffrey is the one true heir to the Iron Throne, and by the grace of all the gods, Lord of the Seven Kingdoms and Protector of the Realm.”

Barristan snorted as the crowd screamed their fury. Stark didn’t even worship the Seven. Everyone in the Red Keep knew that Stark had never set so much as a toe into the royal sept. This was probably the closest the man had ever been to the Sept of Baelor. Truly the word _farce_ was coming to mind.

But then the King was speaking. “My mother bids me let Lord Eddard take the black, and Lady Sansa has begged mercy for her father,” Joffrey said. He smiled at Lady Sansa, but Barristan had known Joffrey for years. More than he should like. That smile boded ill for Lady Sansa and Lord Eddard both. He braced himself for the words to come.

“But they have the soft hearts of women. So long as I am your king, treason shall never go unpunished. Ser Ilyn, bring me his head!”

The crowd roared again, but the Lady Sansa’s screams could be heard above everything else.

Above him, the ragged little urchin was desperately climbing down, throwing himself forward. The boy turned to tear his already-ragged shirt away from a piece of protruding marble, and Barristan got a look at his face.

Her face.

Thin and dirty, a quarter century or so younger, but the resemblance between father and daughter was still clear. 

Barristan lunged forward to catch her.

She was quick, the younger Stark girl, but not big enough or strong enough to shove her way through the crowd. Above them he could still hear the Lady Sansa’s screaming, and a rasp of steel. Barristan had to stop the younger girl, at least, from seeing this. He caught her a scant few rows from the front, a scant few seconds before the sword came down. It had to be said that he grabbed her rather roughly. But he nevertheless managed to spin her around and away from the sight of her father’s beheading. She fought him like a wildcat, clawing and kicking, tears running down her face.

When it was over, he said, “Come, before we are noticed.”

Red-eyed and still half-wild with grief, she looked up at him, and alone of all the people in the crowd that day, she seemed to recognise him. “Are you going to take me back?” she asked, still poised to flee. 

“No,” he said quietly, though the din of the crowd would undoubtedly hide his words. “Joffrey Baratheon has dismissed me from his service. I am going to find another king. A better king. But I will see you on a ship back to your home first.”

“You can’t have been dismissed from the Kingsguard,” the girl said. “The Kingsguard serve for life.”

“That is what I told the Queen Regent. Yet she dismissed me anyway.” 

The girl looked at him then, long and hard. She took in his unshaven face and his brown cloak, the stave he held and the lack of a sword. Finally, she nodded. Barristan was relieved; he would not have relished the task of bodily hauling the girl to a galley. “This way,” he said, indicating she should follow. “You look as though you need a good meal.”

After that, she followed him willingly enough. “I fear I have forgotten your name, my lady,” he said. He remembered her sister’s name well enough. Pretty, charming, naïve Lady Sansa had been at court frequently of late, mooning over Joffrey, the poor girl. She turned a blind eye to Joffrey’s cruelty and Cersei’s contempt and she turned it well. He had seen her in the crowd the day he was dismissed. She had been as beautifully dressed as she had been today, no doubt there to plead for her father as she had pled for her direwolf. To the same result.

Barristan had never been formally introduced to Stark’s second daughter. He recalled her from the incident at Darry, filthy and furious and defiant. She had disarmed Joffrey with a broom and named him a liar to his parents. Afterwards she had wisely avoided the royal family, and so Barristan hadn’t had the opportunity to meet her. Even now she carried a wooden practice sword that looked to be weighted with lead.

“Arya Stark of Winterfell,” the girl said.

He took Arya Stark of Winterfell to a slightly better class of pot-shop, the kind that used horsemeat in its stew, rather than dog or cat or pigeon, and she wolfed it down as though she had not eaten for a week. It took a bit more copper than he had planned to spend here, but the girl was very young and looked as though she had been living hard. Barristan wondered if she had been on the streets since the day the Hand was arrested. Every so often she glared at him with eyes as cold as her father’s, if red-rimmed from tears. 

“I have already arranged passage out of the city,” he said to her as she ate. Quietly, and the noise of the other customers would cover their own conversation. “We will take ship for Pentos.”

“My mother’s in Winterfell,” Arya said. “I don’t want to go to Pentos.”

“Your lady mother is almost certainly not in Winterfell,” Barristan said. _Oh dear._ Stark had protected his daughters well. Perhaps too well, or perhaps this was truly not something to tell such a young child about. “Lady Stark is with your brother Robb – my apologies, Lord Robb, somewhere in the Riverlands, or perhaps at Riverrun with her father. The last reliable reports put her in the Vale, but that was a moon's turn ago.” 

Arya scowled at that. “Why would she be in any of those places? Bran is sick. She would be with him.” 

“I don’t know, child,” Barristan said. “She may return home shortly. But I will see you safely to Winterfell even if we have to go by all the Free Cities first. Your brother’s household will surely take care of you.” 

The girl used the last of her stale bread to mop up her stew. “How? The Queen’s men are on all the gates. I looked every day, they’re not letting anyone through.”

“I have a friend,” Barristan said. “And if that fails, I have a stave.”

 

\---

 

Lord Varys had said that the ship would depart the city on the evening tide, and he left the issue of the gate to Barristan. Even with Lady Arya in tow, he still thought he could handle it. 

“I told you there were guards,” Arya hissed. Her hand tightened over her wooden sword.

“Then I will have to fight for our way through.” It would be more difficult without a horse, but it could be done. The danger would be keeping the girl protected. It would be her they were looking for, not him; as far as anyone knew, Ser Barristan Selmy had cut his way out of the city through the River Gate days ago. 

Unless… “If I cut your hair, you could pass for a boy,” he said. “May I have your permission, my lady?”

“Don’t call me that,” Arya scowled. "My name's _Arya."_

They ducked well out of sight before Barristan took out a knife. As carefully and neatly as he could, he cut her dark hair off. He was a knight and not a barber, and the result was decidedly uneven. They had neither the time nor the particular inclination to correct it. By the time they were done, Arya looked like a ragged boy rather than a ragged girl.

“I am using the name Arstan,” he said. “Pick a name you can remember.”

“Arry,” she said. She did not fight the suggestion of an alias like she fought  _my lady._ A sensible girl.

“Good. If the guards ask, I am your grandfather. Your mother’s father,” he decided, just in case. Having the bones of a story made him feel better. Preparation always helped. “Her name was Ella and she died of a fever.” When he was a boy, the head chambermaid of Harvest Hall had been named Ella.

Arya nodded. “Arry, son of Ella, grandson of Arstan,” she said. It was how a noble would say it, but there was no time to correct her.

“It will do,” Barristan said. “Now, quickly. Not much time remains to us before the tide.”

It was as easy as entering the city had been. The guards sought a highborn girl alone, not a pair of refugees. Their eyes flicked over Arstan and Arry, saw an old man and a young boy, and moved on never knowing they had missed Ser Barristan Selmy and Arya Stark, the Hand’s missing daughter.

“They didn’t see us,” Arya said once they were out of earshot as well as sight. She didn’t sound surprised, but rather thoughtful.

“I’m an old man with mud on my boots and no means to shave, while you are a dirty little boy,” Barristan said. He disliked wearing a beard; it itched. “We are clearly refugees.” 

Arya thought about that too. “We _are_ refugees,” she said at last.

Barristan chuckled. She wasn’t wrong. “Just not the sort the city is seeing so many of these days.”

The girl didn’t seem to find it so amusing, and Barristan was reminded again that her father had been murdered just a few hours past. He had not offered to take her to a sept to pay respects to her father that his traitor’s death would deny him – he did not even know if she kept the Seven or worshiped her father’s gods instead. _At least I was not party to that foul deed._ A wrongful execution at the Sept of Baelor itself. He shuddered.

“We are near to the ship now,” he said, as gently as he could. “In a few weeks you will be home to your mother.”

Was that the right thing to say to a girl who had all but seen her father’s head parted from his shoulders? The thought was put aside as he spotted Varys in the shadows. He was in disguise, naturally. The Master of Whispers liked his mummery. Barristan didn't, but beggars could not be choosers.

“Ah, good ser, you made it,” the eunuch said. Then paused to look over his companion. It was not often Varys showed real surprise. This made for twice in one day. A first, Barristan would expect. “And Arya Stark, I see.” 

Far quicker than Barristan would have ever expected, Arya threw back her cloak and had a small, sharp blade aimed at Varys’ ribs. “You,” she hissed. “It’s _your_ fault.”

He only had an instant to react, but old as he was growing, he was still a trained knight against a child. Barristan stepped behind the girl and pinned her arms behind her body, keeping his hands and arms well clear of her blade. She kept a grip on the little sword and kicked hard at his shins trying to free herself, but as intended she could not lunge forward to open the eunuch’s belly. Varys jumped backwards, light on his feet as always. “Why would you say such a thing, Lady Arya?” Barristan asked.

“I _heard_ him,” she said, eyes still fixed on Varys, wide with loathing. “Him and his friend. They wanted to murder my father.”

“Ah,” said Varys. “I hadn’t thought we were overheard. But you mistook us, my lady. Your father’s death was not and has never been in our interests. I arranged for him to take the black, as the king said. It was another who was responsible.” 

“Anyone could say that,” Arya snapped, temporarily ceasing her kicking.

Varys wrung his hands. “Alas, there is nothing I can offer as evidence of my honesty. The king is known to be both vicious and suggestible. Easily influenced,” he added, when he saw Arya did not know the meaning of _suggestible._

Barristan frowned. Joffrey hardly needed persuasion to do something violent. The Queen Regent had no need to kill Stark, and several good reasons not to. That left a very short list of suspects indeed, providing that Varys was telling the truth.

“You did it,” Arya snarled. “You told Joffrey to kill my father, I know it!”

“My dear child, I did no such thing, but I doubt I can convince you of that. Will you at least allow me to help you escape the city with our honourable friend here? I would not see you in the hands of the queen.”

The girl’s glare remained fixed, and she had stilled completely in Barristan’s grip. He relaxed it very slightly, not wanting to hurt her. “Will you help my sister escape?” she asked at last. 

“No,” Varys said. Arya lunged again suddenly, but Barristan hauled her back. This time he disarmed her entirely, just to be safe. The sword she had was small and light, but well-made and sharp. He was surprised nobody had managed to steal it from her already. Arya immediately twisted to try and face him. “Give it back!”

“I will not,” Barristan said. “Not until we are well away from here. Your sister is a captive. Rescuing her from the Red Keep would be extraordinarily dangerous. Your mother and brother may well trade for her, and meanwhile she is too valuable to harm. Lord Varys has offered to help you escape, however, and I have sworn to see you safely home. Lady Arya, this is not an opportunity to be turned down, or otherwise squandered by murdering Lord Varys.”

“I cannot help sweet Lady Sansa escape, but I will watch over her as best as I am able,” Varys added. 

Barristan was quite sure that he would, whether or not Arya had threatened to kill him. Varys watched everyone. It was his job, and Barristan was now even more certain that he had other reasons to do so.

“You won’t let Joffrey hurt her?” Arya asked suspiciously.

“As best as I am able,” Varys repeated. “That is all I can do for your sister. That, and help you escape.” 

“I will not let you come to harm,” Barristan assured the girl. When she seemed unmoved by even that, he said, “We must leave, my lady, the tide will not halt for us. Must I carry you to the ship?”

“Will you give needle back?”

Needle would be the little sword, Barristan surmised. An apt name for a sword so small and slender. “Once we are aboard. I swear.”

“And you’ll take me back to Winterfell?” 

“I will take you to your family,” he said. “I swear by the old gods and the new, and my honour as a knight.”

With a final glare at Varys, she said, “All right. I’ll go.”

“Thank you, Lady Arya,” Barristan said seriously, though he’d had no intention of leaving her here in King’s Landing. Across the Narrow Sea would be safer for her while passage back to Winterfell was arranged.

“Go, then, and quickly,” Varys urged them. “I will send word of your…changed company.”

Barristan thanked Varys as well, as the eunuch hurriedly counted out coins for their passage. Stark’s daughter was still staring mutinously at everyone and everything. He felt another stab of pity for her. “How old are you?” he asked.

“Eight,” she said. 

Too young. Far too young. Not as young as Princess Rhaenys and Prince Aegon had been when Tywin Lannister’s men had murdered them, but still too young to see anything like what had happened to her father. He doubted Arya would fare much better than Rhaegar’s children, left in the queen’s clutches.

To Pentos, then, and onwards. Even though he wasn’t serving a king, this was an honourable sort of mission. 

“I want Needle back,” she said again.

Barristan ignored the rudeness. It was only natural that she wished to keep this possession that she had kept safe whilst on the streets. “As you wish,” he said, and passed it back to her, hilt-first. Who would she use the blade on, here? “Where did you get such a thing?” 

“My brother. He had Mikken make it for me.”

And a more prized possession still for that, no doubt. “And your lord father allowed it?”

“Yes.” She tilted her chin up at him, clearly daring him to say otherwise. “He got me a teacher and everything. Syrio Forel, the First Sword of Braavos.”

Surprised as he was, Barristan could believe it. That was not the sort of thing a girl would lie about. He imagined there were few enough men even _willing_ to teach a girl. “You ought to know better than to murder a man without cause,” he said gruffly. “Your lord father would be disappointed in you.”

In the fading light of the evening, he thought he saw tears finally rise in the girl’s eyes. That had not been his intention. She scrubbed them away almost as soon as he noticed. “How far is it to Pentos?” she asked him.

“Not far, as these things go.” The voyage from Pentos to White Harbor would be far longer, and who knew how long they might be delayed in Pentos itself, searching for a ship? “You ought to sleep. It will do you good."

Her grey eyes were accusing. Nothing save the reattachment of her father's head and the restoration of his life would do her good. Nothing but being returned to her mother's arms or her family's home. Barristan had done things in his time that men had said were impossible, but he could do nothing for Arya Stark this night save tell her to rest.

 

\---

 

The orphan Arry adjusted to shipboard life better than Barristan had thought Arya Stark would be able to manage. She found her sea legs quickly, and by the evening meal was climbing ropes and learning to help the ship’s boy with his duties. Most highborn girls he had known would have protested rather than seek such out.

He did not see her cry again.

It was good to be away from King’s Landing. The city was dirty at the best of times, and now, in the clear sea air, Barristan could see how degraded it had become. Robert had been a poor king, he had always known that, not a murderer of children himself but a beneficiary of it. A party to it. Aerys had been worse. Barristan was not at ease with that.

If there had been honour in the court recently, it had been that which Jon Arryn and Eddard Stark had brought. They had never been kings, though, and both were dead. Stark had been murdered.

One thing he was certain of – Barristan could never serve the faithless Lannister queen nor any of her children.

If Stark had told it true, Joffrey was not Robert's heir. Not his seed. _Your son has no claim to the throne he sits_ , Stark had said to Cersei Lannister. Barristan could believe it. Cersei’s children had little of Robert’s temperament and none of his appearance, Barristan had noted it before. He could easily believe the queen had taken a lover, though his mind still reeled at the scope of her treason.

He was done with Lannisters for good, but he still needed a king to serve. If Stark was right, and Stark had said as much regarding the succession, Lord Stannis was Robert’s heir, but Barristan was beginning to think he was done with Baratheons as well.

Stannis, he thought, would have allowed the assassination of Daenerys Targaryen. Stark had been right about that whole bloody matter. _What did we rise against Aerys Targaryen for,_ Stark had asked his king, _if not to put an end to the murder of children?_

Barristan had never risen against Aerys Targaryen. He did, however, remember the day Tywin Lannister had laid the bodies of Rhaenys Targaryen and Aegon Targaryen before Robert. They had been so small.

Arya Stark wasn’t so much older than Princess Rhaenys had been, nor much younger than Daenerys Targaryen was now. Her father, who had fought with a king and given up high office for the life of a child, now left his own daughter adrift. Barristan would see _her_ safe, at least, and not allow her to fall back into Lannister hands. He doubted the queen had any more mercy than Lord Lannister himself did.

None of this solved his own problem: if he could no longer serve the Baratheons, whom then would he serve?

First things first. Arya Stark.

The journey to Pentos was a short one. By the time they approached, Arya looked even more the part of Arry, though playing at Arry was less important here in Pentos than it was in King’s Landing. As always, the city could be smelled before it could be seen. It was the way of all cities, but it seemed that Pentos was far less rank than King's Landing. 

“What are we going to do when we get there?” Arya asked him as the shore came into clearer view. She hadn’t spoken to him much in the past few days.

“Food and lodging,” he said. “Tomorrow, we begin searching for a ship to White Harbor. Perhaps Lord Varys’ friend will want to see us.”

“Who’s his friend?” Arya asked. 

“Are you going to try and kill him?”

“They said my father should be killed,” she said. Murderously.

“And now your father is dead,” Barristan said. This was a dangerous line to walk, but he could not have the girl trying to stab people who might help them get her home. “It does not follow that Lord Varys and his friend, if that friend of his is the one you said you saw, are the ones who killed him.” 

“Then they let him die!”

Barristan sighed. “You were there, child, much as I wish you weren’t. You saw Lord Varys plead for your father’s life.” Even the Lannister queen had looked alarmed at Joffrey’s decree. The only one who hadn’t was Littlefinger.

Littlefinger had always been quite… _vocal_ …about his history with Lord Stark’s lady wife. Barristan had even heard tell that Littlefinger had fought a duel for her hand against Brandon Stark, back before the Rebellion. And Littlefinger had been the one to betray Eddard Stark in the first place, going so far as to hold a knife to his throat.

“What is it?” Arya asked.

She must have seen his realisation on his face. A perceptive girl, this one. “I need to think more on this,” he said. “I will tell you later.” 

The girl looked away. “No you won’t. Grown-ups never do.”

Selmy had no answer to that. He _was_ reluctant to voice his theory to a girl who had already tried to kill someone she believed responsible for her father’s death. She was far too young for intrigues and murder.

They disembarked in tense silence. Arya only trusted him so far, and he was unsure how to proceed with her. A finely-dressed man stepped forward to greet them. “Ser?” he said. No name, but just the _ser_ was enough to tell him that this man knew who Barristan was, at least. “I have come from Magister Illyrio Mopatis,” the man said. “I am to bring you to his manse.”

“A moment, if you please,” Barristan said. He turned to Arya. “I will have your word on this.” Mopatis’ man could no doubt still hear them. Best to leave this inexact, though Varys had probably (certainly) sent word on of how Arya had tried to kill him on sight. 

Arya looked mutinous. “Fine,” she said.

“On your father’s honour.” If anything could bind her, it would be that.

She gave him a look of disdain the equal of any fine lady of the court. “I’m not _stupid,_ you know. I know about guest right. I'm not going to murder my host.” 

“My apologies,” he said, stifled the _my lady_ , and took her words as a solemn vow. He turned back to their escort. “Lead on.”

The manse they were led to was a forbidding place, hidden behind walls as high as any castle’s, surmounted by spikes. As they passed the front gate, Barristan saw that it was guarded by Unsullied. So was the postern gate they entered by. Arya remained silent, sullen, and unusually close to his side.

Inside, however, the manse was fine indeed. As fine or finer than the Red Keep itself. Barristan was no expert but even so he could see that the carpets were plush, the furniture made of expensive wood, the wall hangings liberally decorated with gold and silver thread. The opulence was overwhelming. Despite himself, he was aware that he had not bathed properly recently, and he felt the lack of his cloak. Near forty years he’d worn the white.

What was he doing here? With its high walls and guarded gates, this manse could easily become a prison for them both. He needed to return Arya Stark to Winterfell, and then he needed to find his place again, somewhere where the white cloak meant honour.

Daenerys Targaryen lived. 

He and Arya were taken to separate rooms at first. The Stark girl allowed it without protest, to his surprise. Barristan was given the opportunity to bathe and a set of clean clothing (which fit him thankfully well) by servants who undoubtedly were not free to leave. There was nothing he could do for them. Nothing at all.

So he took the advice he had offered Arya that first night out of King's Landing and took the opportunity to sleep. The bed was softer than any he had ever used in his life. It did not comfort him, no more than his young charge had been comforted.

 

\---

 

Some time later, Barristan awoke and saw that the sun had set. He had slept the afternoon away, it seemed. Truly he was getting too old for this, but knights of the Kingsguard served for life.

His life wasn’t over. He just needed a king. Or rather, a queen. He had made up his mind. 

He also needed to find Arya Stark, who had probably been wandering Illyrio Mopatis’ manse nigh on unsupervised all afternoon. Possibly with live steel at her waist.

As soon as he opened the door of his room, a servant (slave?) appeared as if from nowhere. “Ser,” he said, “Magister Illyrio requests your company for dinner.”

“Of course,” Barristan said. “May I ask for his patience? I must find Lady Arya first, but I will join him as soon as I have found her.”

The servant’s mouth tightened unhappily. At a guess, people did not often keep Magister Illyrio waiting. “The young lady is exploring downstairs,” he said. “She is also welcome to join the magister for the evening meal.” 

Reassured that at least Arya hadn’t caused complete havoc, Barristan set off to find her. He asked other servants where she was as he passed them, following Arya’s path through parlours and sculleries alike. _Thank the gods it’s too dark for her to go outside._ At last he found her poking about an unused dining room. 

She had been given a boy’s clothing, very fine, in a red that did not particularly suit her. It did nothing but bring out the anger in her eyes. Now that her hair was clean, it was even more obvious what a poor job Barristan had done cutting it.

“What do you want?” she snapped.

“Our host would like us to join him for dinner,” Barristan said. “Aren’t you hungry?” 

The girl scowled. The answer must be _yes_. “I don’t like it here,” she said. “There’s no way out.”

It had not taken her long at all to get used to being chased. He hadn’t thought she’d noticed how trapped they were for the moment. They were guests, yes, just not the sort of guests who were free to leave at any time. But they needed help, and here was where they were most likely to get it. 

Any help Varys and his friend might choose to give them would undoubtedly have strings, Barristan reminded himself. The eunuch was not one to do things purely out of the goodness of his heart. “That is why we should go dine with our host,” he said patiently. “He may help you return to Winterfell.” 

Arya’s scowl only deepened. “You said _you_ would take me to Winterfell.”

“And I will,” Barristan said. “As I swore to you. But I have no ship, my lady, and no coin to buy us passage.”

She still did not seem convinced, much less pleased, but she followed him anyway.

They were shown into the dining room with the utmost courtesy. Arya eyed the servant suspiciously, and their host even more suspiciously. 

“Welcome, welcome,” Illyrio Mopatis said expansively. Barristan imagined that Mopatis had to do most everything expansively. A broader man he had never seen in his life. In fact, Mopatis almost looked like a girl’s massive doll, his round blond head perched upon yards and yards of expensive fabric. The effect reminded him of nobody so much as Robert Baratheon, save that the late king had borne more traces of the mighty warrior he had once been.

“Ser Barristan Selmy,” Mopatis continued, “Such exalted company I rarely have the pleasure to host here at my humble abode.” 

“You flatter me, my lord,” Barristan said, bowing to disguise his look of disbelief at the words _humble abode_.

“And Lady Arya Stark. Any daughter of that ancient and noble house is welcome within my walls.”

The Lady Arya in question did not curtsey. Nor did she bow. Unlike Barristan, and perhaps Illyrio, she did not bother to disguise her hostility. A simple glance was enough to confirm that she had recognised the second of the conspirators who she claimed had wanted to kill her father.  _A hard child, this one._ It had served her well on the streets of King’s Landing and on the ship to Pentos, but for the first time since Eddard Stark’s blood had been spilled on the steps of Baelor’s Sept, he found himself wishing the girl had even some of her sister’s graces.

“Eat, my friends,” Mopatis encouraged them. “Eat! We shall talk business afterwards.”

The table laid for them was as sumptuous as the rest of the house. If not more. It was enough to make him eat more than he ought. He mopped up a thick sauce heavy with spices he could not put names to and tried not to think of how much it would have cost. Next to him, Arya spluttered after incautiously sampling too fiery a pepper. It made Mopatis smile at her indulgently, which in turn made Arya glare furiously back.

Her sword was at her side, exactly where it had been since he had returned it to her on the ship. Barristan had no choice but to trust in her promise to behave as a guest should.

When at last the meal was cleared away, Mopatis’ faintly paternal expression faded. “Now,” he said. “Our mutual friend tells me you are in need of some aid.”

“I have sworn to return Lady Arya to her home in Winterfell or to her surviving kin,” Barristan said, gesturing to the girl that now would be a good time to stay quiet. “Before I do anything else, I must do that.”

Mopatis wrung his hands, rather theatrically in Barristan’s opinion. “Alas, you do not know.”

“That Stannis Baratheon’s fleet will soon be patrolling the Narrow Sea? It is nothing that I could not guess, my friend.” Lord Stannis had been preparing for this for moons – since Stark had been appointed Hand. Soon he must take ship lest he lose his men. Any ship that went past Dragonstone would be at risk. It was a risk they had already faced on their journey to Pentos.

“The situation is worse than you think. Stannis has hired many sellsails,” the fat man explained. “More than the Lannisters can hope to match. That smuggler of his has been promising coin to every pirate between here and Braavos, and now they sail south to Dragonstone. To take ship now would be to deliver yourselves to him.”

“I have no intention of serving Stannis Baratheon,” Barristan said evenly, “and I do not wish to deliver Lady Arya to be a hostage for him.”

“As I thought, as I thought.” Another dramatic pause. “There is worse news still to come. First, Lady Arya’s brother has declared himself King in the North. He and the lords of your Riverlands are in rebellion against the Iron Throne. In Highgarden, Renly Baratheon has crowned himself a king as well.”

Barristan gaped. “But he cannot be king. Even if Joffrey and Tommen are not Robert’s seed, Stannis is ahead of him in the succession.” 

“And on Pyke, Balon Greyjoy has likewise declared himself King of his domain. My eyes dare not get too close lest they be discovered, but his own fleet prepares for a northwards attack.”

Mopatis paused while the full import of his words sunk in. Arya looked between them with wide, frightened eyes. Tough as she was, there was nothing one girl could do against a war. “Then,” Barristan said, “to take Lady Arya back across the Narrow Sea –“ 

“Would be to condemn her. Yes.”

“No it wouldn’t!” Arya protested. “Winterfell is safe. Winterfell is _always_ safe.”

“I do not dispute that, my lady,” Mopatis said delicately. “Only that every route to your home is fraught with peril, and your family’s enemies are many.” 

“You could easily suffer your sister’s fate. Or worse,” Barristan added. Though none should envy the Lady Sansa, trapped in King Joffrey’s court. “The Ironborn do not treat their prisoners well, and sellsails such as Stannis has hired are not often kind. Nor do you want to be apprehended by the Lannisters, am I correct?”

“I’m not staying here,” Arya said to him, with a quick glare at their host. “I’m not. He wanted to kill my father.”

Mopatis simply raised his eyebrows. “My dear girl,” he said, “Where else can you go?”

Poor Arya had no response to that. Until she announced “I can stay with Ser Barristan.” 

Then it was he who had no response for her. “My lady,” he said, “I have my own mission.” He had a queen to find. 

“You said you would take me home. You _swore_.” The expression of contempt she gave him was really quite remarkable. Stark faces seemed to be made for those hard emotions. And Barristan felt shamed. He _had_ sworn.

“It is less than ideal,” Mopatis said, “But perhaps you could take the long way back to Westeros.”

“Pardon me?”

“Daenerys Targaryen is a widow now, and I would help her travel west to the land of her fathers to claim their throne. Go east to her, and she will take you both west.” 

“Surely that would be too dangerous for Lady Arya,” Barristan objected, at almost the same instant Arya said, “Fine.”

“Lady Arya,” Barristan protested, “I am not sure this is a good idea.” 

“I won’t stay here,” Arya said mulishly. “You said you’d take me home. I’ll ask your queen if I have to.”

Every option was dangerous. This would keep Arya under his eye – and truth be told he did not trust the magister entirely either. Could the man truly have wished to murder Eddard Stark? Barristan did not have trouble believing it. 

“It would be more than a year before I could return you,” Barristan said, and realized instantly that he’d tacitly agreed. And though it shamed him not to fulfill his promise to Lady Arya more directly, he _did_ feel better knowing that he would have his other oaths again soon.

It might be for the best after all, even if it would take them both a long time to reach Winterfell. Gods knew an ocean journey would be less dangerous for Arya than Joffrey on the Iron Throne.

Illyrio Mopatis interrupted with a single clap. “Well, that is decided. One way or another we will see Lady Arya back to her home and family. If you will both consent to stay here but a turn of the moon more, I will gift Queen Daenerys with ships that you might take her and return her here to Pentos.”

 

\---

 

“A turn of the moon,” Barristan said. “Can you wait a turn of the moon?” 

“Yes,” Arya said. She scowled at him. Barristan could not fault her unhappiness.

“It will be longer still before you see your family again if we take this path,” he cautioned her, not for the first time. “More than a year, possibly two.”

“I’m not staying here,” Arya insisted. “I don’t trust him." 

Yet she trusted Barristan. Enough to leave with him, at least. A small girl’s trust could be a weighty thing. “Can you write, girl?”

She narrowed her eyes. “A bit.”

“Do you wish to send your lady mother a letter? I am sure Master Illyrio can do that much for you at least, and your family need not worry overmuch. They will at least know that you are alive.”

Arya nodded jerkily.

“Let’s find some parchment.” 

They did so, and Barristan watched as Arya laboriously wrote out her message. _Dear Mother and Robb, I am not dead. I am in Pentos with a man called Illyrio Mopatis_ (She asked his assistance with the spelling.) _as well as Ser Barristan Selmy who helped me escape King’s Landing. Ser Barristan says he will make sure I get to you but it will take a long time because everyone is fighting. I hope Robb wins the war._

She was too young to have much of a signature. And of course they had no seal. Nothing to prove that Arya Stark wrote that letter. Except, perhaps…

Barristan added his own words to another sheet of parchment. _Lord Robb Stark of Winterfell, Lady Catelyn Stark of Winterfell, Lady Arya is indeed in my company, having encountered and recognised her in King’s Landing. She was alone but well armed with a certain needle gifted to her by her brother. She told me she escaped the Red Keep on the day of her lord father’s arrest and evaded the Lannisters for several days thereafter until I found her following my own dismissal from the Kingsguard. No harm was done to her beyond fright and bruises, though I regret to say both she and Lady Sansa were witness to Lord Eddard’s execution._

_Following that sad event I thought it best to take her with me to Pentos, from where we write, beyond the reach of Cersei Lannister. Though it is not safe for either of us to cross the Narrow Sea again at present thanks to Lord Stannis’ campaign, I give you my word that I will protect Arya until I can deliver her back into the hands of her kin._

He signed it _yours faithfully_ and hoped that the mention of Arya’s little sword would help sway her mother and brother to believing its authenticity. Lady Stark must fear for her daughters, one of whom would still be in the hands of the Lannisters. 

Omitted were all mention of Varys’ role in their escape and Queen Daenerys, and he told Arya to do the same. He also had to tell her to omit any mention of the magister’s supposed plan to murder Eddard Stark. With luck and a touch of genuine kindness, Illyrio Mopatis would decide the letters posed no threat to his plans and ensure the letters reached the Starks. 

“My lady, look at it this way,” he said, “Would your lady mother prefer to know that you are alive and well and away from the Lannisters, or to hear nothing of you at all?”

“Mother would _want_ to know who tried to kill Father.” 

“No doubt she would.” Patience would be key here. “But if you try to pass that information on, our host would never consent to pass on your letter. On the other hand, letting her know you live and are not in Lannister hands is valuable information too.”

So the poor girl deferred to his judgment and passed her letter to him with a dejected look.

“I will see about passing them on,” Mopatis said when Barristan gave him the letters. “Perhaps they will be in the hands of Robb Stark by the time you and Lady Arya meet Queen Daenerys.”

It was probably the best they could hope for. He did not like trusting so much to Illyrio Mopatis, but who else here would do even this much for Arya Stark?

He would know if he could serve Daenerys Targaryen for true if she would help him to take Arya Stark back to her home and family.

 

\---

 

The wait was near interminable for both him and Lady Arya. They were left to their own devices with the manse’s grounds, so long as they did not pry into Master Illyrio’s work.

It was tremendously tedious.

He threw himself into training, the sort of training that he would not be able to maintain on a ship. Pitching decks did not lend themselves well to refining swordplay. And he was an old man, he felt it more than he ever had before. If he allowed himself to fall out of condition, he would never regain it.

To his surprise, he often saw Lady Arya at the practice yard as well. She glared defiantly at any serving man or woman who looked at her with a carefully neutral expression and worked diligently through her basic stances. 

“How long did you have a master for?” Barristan asked her, the third time he’d encountered her with real sword in hand.

“Only a few moons,” she said. “I know I don’t know much.” 

“You are wise to practice that which you do know,” he told her. “I know little of water dancing myself, but it seems to me you overextend on your lunges. Take care to remain balanced and do not overcommit to any single stroke. Try again, and this time pull back a finger-width earlier.”

It was strange to advise a girl on swordsmanship. He wondered if he should have given her the advice after all; it would be taken as encouragement. However, knowing it was a gift from her brother, he did not wish to take her sword from her. And if she had it, she ought know how to use it. Her lord father had clearly thought the same, and who was Barristan to disagree with Lord Eddard about how his daughter should be raised?

Shortly before they were due to depart Pentos, he went to Illyrio again. “You are absolutely sure that we cannot travel to White Harbor?” 

“More certain than I was before,” the magister replied. “I have more news from the North. There is fighting between the Boltons and the Manderlys now, a dispute over some lands. Forgive me, I know nothing more, my contacts in that region are minimal.” 

It was suspiciously timed. Barristan did not know if he ought to believe Mopatis. “Might I make my own inquiries at the docks?” he asked.

“Certainly, my friend. Ask for the _Fairbreeze_. She arrived two days ago from White Harbor with a cargo of wool.” Mopatis chuckled. “Winter is coming, after all.”

He decided not to take Arya on this particular mission. She would see enough of ships and sailors in the moons to come, and know little of relatively safe manses. And Barristan did not know Pentos. If he should find trouble, he would rather find it without her to protect as well.

But as he walked down the hill and through the streets, under the square brick towers and to the bustling markets by the docks, he wished he could have shown her. It might have brought her some joy.

Once he returned to the docks, he made inquiries. The _Fairbreeze_ , as Mopatis had said, was still in harbor. It was even crewed mostly by Northerners. “Aye,” the mate said, when Barristan asked. “It was the talk of White Harbor. There’s fighting up in what used to be Lord Hornwood’s land. He and his heir died fighting for the Starks, and now some bastard of Lord Bolton’s went and decided he wants his da to have the land. Lady Hornwood’s a cousin of Lord Manderly, though, and his lordship isn’t one to let a bastard boy walk all over his kin. So now they war, and with Lord Eddard dead and King Robb away, there’s not much to stop them.” 

The news was corroborated by the captain of another, less reputable ship. (It was named the _Saucy Viola_ , so Barristan was not tremendously surprised by its lack of reputation.) “He’s a brute, the Bastard of Bolton,” the man said with relish. He was the sort who liked scaring travellers with tall tales. “Wed Lady Hornwood at swordpoint and then locked her in a tower to starve, I heard.”

Personally, Barristan doubted that one was true. It was enough to know that the North too was wracked by conflict.

There were no traders from King’s Landing, which did not surprise him. Stannis Baratheon must at last be making his move. The word from Oldtown by way of a Gulltown merchant was that the Tyrells had closed the Roseroad, whilst Lysa Arryn still did nothing.

He just wanted to return Arya Stark to her kin. That was all. But one old man could not fight through a war. Not without help.

For her sake, he kept an ear out for news of her family. There was little enough. They were calling her brother Robb the Young Wolf now, and it seemed he’d won at least one battle with that name.

For himself, he turned his ears to rumours of Targaryens. Most of those he asked said that the Beggar King was dead and dead ignominiously – run before Khal Drogo’s khalasar until he died, beheaded on his sister’s orders, crowned with molten gold for insulting the Khal. Barristan felt a stab of pity at for the boy who had inherited his father’s madness. 

Of Daenerys Targaryen, he heard nothing beyond what he already knew of her. All in all it was a disheartening sort of day.

“Where were you?” Arya asked. 

“Looking for news,” he said. “Your brother has been winning battles.”

“Father spent a lot of time teaching him and Jon.” She said it with a child’s perfect faith in an older brother. He marveled that she still had it after what she had seen done to her father. “Has Robb won enough battles for me to go home?" 

“No,” Barristan had to tell her. He did not wish to tell her of the fighting in the North itself. “We will take ship for Queen Daenerys as planned.”

Arya looked disappointed. As well she might. “When do we go?”

“Three days from now. The ships we are to take are in port at the moment.” He had seen them himself. They were as well-appointed ships as he had expected from Illyrio Mopatis, ships that would serve to take a queen home. Hopefully it would not take such a long time. “Are you sure you do not wish to stay here in safety?”

She said only what she had said every time he’d asked. “I’m not staying here.”

“I know,” Barristan sighed. “I know.”


	2. To Qarth

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The journey to find Daenerys Targaryen goes further afield than initially expected.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Surprise! Content notes for a misogynistic slur and slavery.

The ships they were to take to find Daenerys Targaryen were a cog and two galleys. Arya hadn’t known the difference until recently. Until Ser Barristan took her here to Pentos, she’d never been on a ship at all. Ser Barristan had said the cog was named Saduleon, and the galleys were called Summer’s Sun and Foso’s Prank. Arya dearly wished to know what Foso’s Prank had been and why anyone had named a ship for it.

“Like as not it’s not a tale for a young lady’s ears,” Ser Barristan said.

“So?” Arya asked him. “Do you know what it was or not?”

The old knight smiled. “No.”

They had been in Pentos what seemed like forever to Arya. She hated it. It was worse than the Red Keep had ever been. The fat man’s manse was full of people who wouldn’t speak to her. They simply glared. All of them. _See with your eyes_. They were slaves. She didn’t know if they could escape, or if they wanted to.

And the manse didn’t have anywhere to explore, like the Red Keep. There were no tunnels here, and the _slaves_ watched her all the time.

Beyond the walls of the estate was Pentos, and Arya _did_ want to explore there, but nobody would let her, not even Ser Barristan. “It would be too easy for you to get lost,” Ser Barristan said. “You don’t even speak the language.”

“I could learn,” she protested. She’d been trying. Most of what she’d learnt so far were curses. But she was trying.

So the entire time she was in the fat man’s manse was lonely and dull. She missed all the men who had come south from Winterfell with them. She missed her father. She even missed Sansa.

She did not like to think about how long it might be before she saw Sansa again. She had screamed so loudly when – Arya could still hear everything that had happened at night sometimes. Sansa screaming. A _thunk_. The crowd. Sansa screaming, louder still. She must have seen it, Arya realised. There hadn’t been a crowd between her and where - where -

It was all Joffrey's fault, she thought angrily. Joffrey and the queen.

More than anything, she wanted to go home. Ser Barristan said it would take a year. A whole year more before she saw her mother again, or Robb or Bran or Rickon. She hadn’t seen Bran since he woke up. Arya vowed to remember everything she could about Pentos, because he would want to hear it. Rickon would too, probably, and even Robb hadn’t been so far from home before. Now she’d been to King’s Landing _and_ one of the Free Cities.

The day they were to leave Pentos at last dawned bright and clear, with a crisp breeze blowing from the north. 

“We could not ask for better weather,” Ser Barristan said with a smile, as they began their journey to the docks. _He_ was happy. He wanted to go find that queen of his. He said he’d take her home and Arya believed him, but she knew that he’d prefer to go east for this Daenerys lady.

“A good day indeed,” the fat man said. “May all your days of sailing be so fine and the winds so favourable.”

He’d come to see them off. He wanted to find this Daenerys as well. Arya didn’t know what made Daenerys such a special queen, but she couldn’t be worse than Cersei. Or maybe she could, if the fat man liked her. Arya didn’t trust the fat man, not one bit.

The queen was from House Targaryen. Arya’s father never told them much about the old king, the one before Robert who had murdered Arya’s uncle Brandon and grandfather Rickard, or the prince who had kidnapped Arya’s aunt, but even so she knew Daenerys had to be a cousin or a daughter of some sort. Sansa might have known.

Arya had wondered for a while if her father would approve of her going to find this Daenerys, but then decided that he wouldn’t care as long as she stayed away from the Lannisters. She wondered if _Robb_ would mind, now that he was King in the North and all.

It was the cog that was waiting for them. Arya itched to board and be gone, but she thought she ought to at least say goodbye like a proper lady, even if the fat man _had_ wanted to murder her father. Her lord father and lady mother had both said she should be polite even to those she hated.

Even so, the words stuck in her throat.

There was another man waiting for them already on the deck. He was fat too, but even so Arya could see the muscles in his arms and legs. In fact, Arya decided, he was mostly muscle. That and scars. She had never seen anyone so scarred, not even the Hound with his burned face.

The magister smiled when he saw the scarred man. “Ah, Ser Barristan, Lady Arya. It is my pleasure to introduce you to another travelling companion. This is Belwas. As you can see, he has spent rather some time as a pit fighter.”

“Best in all Meereen,” Belwas said. “ _Strong_ Belwas never lose.”

“He will be accompanying you on you journey,” the magister said to Ser Barristan, “another pair of eyes to search for Queen Daenerys, and when you find her, another pair of eyes to watch her back.”

Ser Barristan bowed. Arya followed his lead, but Belwas was glowering at her. “What is tiny girl doing here?” he asked.

“I’m _Arya Stark_ ,” Arya said. She had a name.

“In the Seven Kingdoms, the name _Stark_ is very nearly as famous as the name _Targaryen_ ,” the magister explained. “The young lady is no doubt unaccustomed to being told she cannot go anywhere.”

Arya shuffled her feet nervously. She had been as much underfoot for the magister’s servants as she ever was at Winterfell, even if the servants here weren’t friendly as all. Ser Barristan said they were slaves too, so she wasn’t the only one who had realised it. Arya didn’t like to think on that. Her father had always said that where a man might owe loyalty and service, he still belonged to himself – or herself, as the case may be.

Belwas shook his head. “Ship, it is no place for tiny girl. Army neither.”

“Is it not?” the magister said. “You may be surprised when you meet Queen Daenerys, then. The last I saw her she did not stand so very much higher than Lady Arya does now.”

Ser Barristan said, “She has nowhere else to go. She is in my care, Master Belwas, I will not allow any harm to come to her.”

Arya frowned. She did too have somewhere else to go. Winterfell was still there. Her mother and Jon and Robb and Bran and Rickon and Sansa lived. It was just that nobody could, or would, take her to them.

“I do not like it.”

“Your opinion has not been solicited,” the magister told Belwas, rather sharply. “You are to find Daenerys Targaryen, nothing else. The girl is Ser Barristan’s charge. He will see to her welfare.”

 _Arya_ didn’t like it. They were all talking over her head, all of them. She wanted to go home already, or at least get the stupid ship under way. The sooner they found this Queen Daenerys, the sooner Arya could go back to Winterfell. And her name wasn’t "the girl."

The magister’s word at least seemed to be final. He stepped off then, and ropes were untied and the captain started to shout. After a small eternity, the ship left.

The ocean was blue this morning, not green or grey like it usually was in King’s Landing. This blue was the colour of a gown her mother had once made for her, that Arya had hated with a passion because the sleeves always itched at her wrists. She would have liked to have that dress back again. Not to wear. Just to have. She’d lost everything her mother had given her when she ran from the Red Keep.

She went exploring in the ship itself, and found to her surprise that she was to have her own bunk. It was small and hard, but it was to be hers. There were clothes already on it, thin woolen clothes meant for a boy. It wouldn’t matter if she got these dirty. She had worn boy’s clothing all the time in Pentos, since Illyrio Mopatis had quite a bit of it, but it had all been silk and velvet and things like that. As nice as anything Sansa would wear, but still trousers, so there. It had fit fine.

Beneath the plain clothes was a finer gown in white and grey. For when they met Daenerys Targaryen, Arya assumed. She hadn’t worn a gown like that since King Robert had visited Winterfell, and only because her mother had made her.

Arya put on the woolens and tried not to think of it.

 

\---

 

Sailing was _boring._

A week out of Pentos and Arya was very, very tired of seeing just the ocean. All day every day the entire world was either blue or grey. She wanted to talk to the sailors, but her Valyrian was worse than their common.

She _did_ manage to learn some dice games, though, just by watching. Her mother wouldn’t approve, but Arya immediately resolved to teach Bran when she got back. Even if he couldn’t walk he could still learn to cheat at dice.

Ser Barristan caught her once. It wasn’t surprising. Ships were small, Arya was coming to learn. She could never have hoped to travel as a boy aboard a ship. “Dicing is not appropriate for a young lady,” he said. “Even less than a sword is.” His frown was more for himself than for her, she thought. 

“I’m bored,” she said.

“Even so.”

But he didn’t stop her from learning. He didn’t even mention it again.

After a while she grew used to being confined on the ship. It was like the Kingsroad when she couldn’t leave the procession and all they were travelling through were fields. Instead of finding new flowers she tried to spot new birds, or different shaped clouds, or even land.

It would not be far to Myr, Ser Barristan assured her, where they would go ashore to seek more news of Daenerys Targaryen. “I don’t expect we’ll find that news, though,” he said.

“Why not?”

“Because she rode east with the khalasar of Khal Drogo. She could be very far from the sea, but sooner or later news of a khalasar so large will reach a port, and the khal as well.”

“What’s a khalasar?”

“A tribe of the Dothraki people. They don’t have towns or cities as most people do, but ride from place to place, raiding and pillaging as they go, most often. They ride all day every day, and make camp in the evenings. Even the least of the men and women in a khalasar will likely see much of Essos in their lifetime. The chief of a khalasar is called a khal. Queen Daenerys was wed to one of the most powerful khals in Essos.”

Arya imagined riding so long and so far. Essos was bigger than Westeros, she knew from her lessons. How long would it take to ride from the Free Cities to wherever it was Essos ended? The sailors spoke of so many places, but it was rare Arya knew where any of them might be. “It sounds fun to me.”

“No doubt.” Ser Barristan smiled. “I would prefer a good stout keep myself, but fortunately I am not Dothraki.”

From Myr they would go to Tyrosh, if need be. Arya had never met anyone who’d been to Tyrosh, let alone any Tyroshi. Or at least, she thought she hadn’t until Ser Barristan said, “I have visited Tyrosh before, in my youth.”

Arya hadn’t realized, but soon cursed herself for a fool. Of course he had visited the Free Cities – he spoke the Valyrian of the Free Cities. He had to have learned it somewhere.

“I do not know how it may have changed,” Ser Barristan continued, oblivious to Arya’s realization. “And I do not claim to know it well in the first place.”

“Will I be allowed to come ashore?” Arya asked.

“I see no reason why not,” the old knight said. “I doubt we will find Daenerys Targaryen in Myr or Tyrosh.”

“Would she not want to meet me?” Her father didn’t speak about the war much. Her mother said it made him too sad to remember how his father, his brother, and his sister all died. But Arya still knew that he had helped overthrow the Targaryens. Maybe Daenerys Targaryen wouldn’t want to meet her after all.

Ser Barristan hesitated. “Perhaps not.” His face hardened. “But if she would offer you harm, I swear to you, Lady Arya, we will turn around and make our own way to Westeros. I will not serve a queen who hurts little girls because of who their fathers were.”

She believed him. She didn’t have a choice but to believe him.

She also had another question for him. “Do Tyroshi men really dye their hair?” She’d heard that from one of her father’s guardsmen, one of the ones who went south with him during the Rebellion.

“They do,” Ser Barristan said.

“Did you, when you visited?”

“Yes, but not for the reasons you think,” he replied with a smile. “I was terribly drunk at the time and lost a wager with a friend. He had found this green dye, you see. Worst of all, in those days, my hair was red.”

 

\---

 

They put ashore in Myr on a horrible wet day, the sort that had only just enough wind to drive the rain into every nook and cranny. Arya was soaked to the skin within minutes of disembarking.

“Tiny mouse girl,” Strong Belwas said disapprovingly. “Now tiny _drowned_ mouse girl.”

With his tough, scarred skin Arya thought Belwas looked more like a lizard-lion than a person, but she wasn’t about to taunt him. _Lizard-lion man_ sounded a lot scarier than _mouse girl._  

“Tiny she may be,” Ser Barristan said, “But she can go places and speak to people that neither of us can, my friend. Peace.”

“Whitebeard has strange way of protecting mouse girl,” he grumbled, but left it there.

Arya repressed the urge to stick her tongue out. Together they made their way to the waterfront, which was the sort of place that even Arya’s father would never have let her wander around. But Arya’s father was dead and her mother, who would be even more horrified, was a continent away.

She discovered very quickly, staying close by Barristan’s grey cloak, that she would be worse than useless here. The old knight had just been humouring her when he brought her ashore. There were always lots of different people down by the docks, so she didn’t stand out _too_ much just to look at her, but she couldn’t understand a thing.

They made lace in Myr, Arya remembered from her lessons. Her mother had a gown with a panel of Myrish lace, and Sansa had a gown with a trim of it. Maester Luwin had a far-eyes from Myr too. Arya wished she could buy one for Jon, but there was no way she could ever afford it.

In the end she simply stayed close to Ser Barristan while he talked to sailors at the dockside taverns and pot-shops.

“What’s going on?” she asked, after the third pot-shop.

“No news,” Barristan said quietly. “We’ll head to Tyrosh.”

When they arrived in Tyrosh after more tedious sailing, Arya immediately decided she liked it better. Everyone, from the slaves to the nobles, wore bright colours, and dyed their hair just like Ser Barristan had said. 

And she could understand a bit better, since the Tyroshi spoke Valyrian. Just enough for her to track what was being said. She _had_ learned, a bit at a time.

“What news of the khalasars?” Barristan asked a merchant in a plaza beneath the black inner walls of the city. Arya kept an ear on the conversation and an eye on the great fountain, which was beautiful. When she got back to Winterfell she would tell everyone about it. Watching the water spray was far better than looking at the merchant’s wares.

The man was a slaver. There had been slavers in Myr as well, but none that Barristan had talked to while Arya was present.

“The khalasars?” the merchant scoffed. “The horse people are no concern of ours.”

“It’s not invasion I speak of,” Barristan said. “My employer wishes to know of the slave trade in the eastern reaches. The Dothraki have ever brought good fortune to men dealing in flesh.”

“True,” the merchant said. “But your employer may be disappointed. The great khalasar of Khal Drogo is no more, and the khal himself is dead.”

Barristan sighed dramatically. “A blow for our hopes,” he said evenly, while Arya’s mind raced. Khal Drogo was the man Barristan had said Daenerys Targaryen had been wed to. If he was dead, what had happened to Daenerys? “Where did this unfortunate event occur?”

The merchant shrugged. “I heard out in the Grass Sea. Word is that he was preparing for something, and needed to sell on slaves for the extra coin. I was hoping we’d see some here in Tyrosh, but no luck.”

Barristan thanked the man and ushered Arya away. “I feel like I need a wash myself,” he said as they passed the great fountain. The people nearby were calling it the Fountain of the Drunken God, which Arya thought was an excellent name.

“They all looked so beaten,” Arya said. When she realized why, that was when she had turned away to look at anything else.

“They probably have been.”

“That’s not right,” Arya said.

“I’m afraid that it’s simply what happens,” Barristan said sadly. “There is a reason the practice was outlawed in Westeros, even though there are lords who treat their smallfolk as badly as any slave.”

“Well it shouldn’t!” Her father had treated his smallfolk well. Mostly. _Remember Mycah._

Barristan sighed. “It will be worse in Volantis,” he warned her. “Perhaps you ought to stay on the ship while Belwas and I gather our information.”

“No!” She hated the ships. All of them. She knew them top to bottom now. And if she had to go all over Essos to find Daenerys Targaryen, she wanted to at least _see_ Essos. Not even Jon would have such a good story as she did, and he was probably going past the Wall and fighting wildlings.

She tried not to think of what she would have told her father.

 

\---

 

Volantis was _huge_. “How are we going to find anyone in _there_?” Arya asked as she and Barristan watched the city walls come into view. It was bigger even than King’s Landing, it had to be. The walls were bigger than _Winterfell’s_. Higher and thicker, though in some places they were covered in vines. Her father never let vines take over Winterfell’s outer walls, or the walls of any building they used. He said they destroyed the rock.

“With patience,” Barristan said. “And luck.”

In fact, Arya thought as they got closer, it looked like Volantis was _two_ cities, one on either side of the big river. The city on the right looked nicer, with colourful domes shining in the sun. The city on the left, where their ship was slowly approaching, looked like the usual docks.

“Don’t stare,” Barristan advised her. “It makes you look like a target.”

Arya nodded, and did her best to look used to the city. It was difficult. It was so _big_. She wondered how many people lived in Volantis – thousands and thousands, it had to be. Hundreds of thousands. A lot of them had tattoos on their faces. Slaves, as Ser Barristan had warned her. Arya didn’t like it. Arya didn’t like it at all.

Then there were the creatures called elephants that the Volantenes used to pull their carts around instead of horses. Arya liked _them_ a lot more, with their funny long noses. She stayed near one of the smaller elephants the whole time Barristan was in the first tavern they went to, watching the street and listening for any mention of Daenerys Targaryen.

When Barristan returned, Arya asked her most important question.

“Why don’t they run? The slaves. Couldn’t they hide in the city somewhere?” Volantis was so big; it had to be possible. She couldn’t imagine passing the same person twice in a city this huge.

Barristan sighed. “The tattoos give them away.”

“Couldn’t they cut them off? Or burn them?”

“Some do, no doubt,” Barristan said, starting to push his way through the crowds to the next likely-looking tavern. “The bravest and the most desperate, I would think. It would be a hard life, and fearful, and there would always be a scar.”

Arya remembered what it was like when she’d been alone in King’s Landing. She’d been scared all the time. It had been awful. She could not imagine living like that always. It still wasn’t right. She scowled, but before she could say anything, Barristan added, “Hold your tongue whilst we are here. Your words cannot improve anything for them.”

She looked around. There were so many people with tattoos on their faces.

It wasn’t _right_.

But she did as she was told, and followed Barristan to the next gambling den.

In the evening they met Belwas again at the inn they were staying at. “Any luck?” Barristan asked their companion.

“Horse boys fight a lot,” Belwas said. “All sound the same to Belwas.”

Arya had the impression Belwas was not sent with them because he was good at finding things out. “There are many khalasars on the Dothraki Sea these days,” Barristan said. He sounded disappointed. Arya agreed. She had listened, just as Barristan had, but neither of them knew Dothraki. All their names blended together in a gallop of _khal_ and _ko._

There were so many people in Volantis. It could take them _years_ to find out anything about Daenerys Targaryen. At least it felt that way. Still, it was better than the ship.

They had no luck the next day, or the day after that, or the five after that, but on the eighth day they were in Volantis, Arya heard a man say _dragons_. Then, _Targaryen._ Arya rushed to find Barristan in the crowd.

“They’re talking about dragons over there!”

Barristan turned, and frowned. “Are you sure, child?”

“They said _Targaryen_ ,” Arya said impatiently. She knew what she had heard. It wasn’t like she knew much else of what they were saying. Familiar words were easy to pick out. Her Valyrian was better than it had been when they were in Pentos, but it made Barristan sigh because she apparently spoke like a sailor and not like a lady. She didn't know why he'd be surprised. There weren't any ladies around to learn from.

Barristan nodded and moved in the direction Arya had indicated. The men she had heard didn’t look like the sort who’d give her anything except a cuff around the ears, otherwise she would have asked herself. She hung back and tried to follow their conversation, picking out the words _Targaryen_ and _dragon_ again, and then the word for _east_.

East? Further east? They’d already gone so far.

Barristan turned back to her with a small smile and a happier light in his eyes than she had ever seen from him before. “Queen Daenerys is in Qarth,” he told Arya. “With three new-hatched dragons, they say.”

 

\---

 

That night, asleep in the Volantene inn for the last time, Arya dreamed of home. Winterfell. Half a world away and more.

She dreamed of her little brothers playing hide-and-find in the crypts, and Sansa smiling as she picked out a dress. She saw Robb in the yard while her mother looked on, and Jon coming back from riding. She saw her father in the godswood, and that was when she knew none of it was real.

You could look with your eyes even in a dream, and Arya saw how wrong it all was. Robb fought with real steel and Lady Catelyn was afraid. Sansa’s smile was fake, bruises on her arms, and Bran and Rickon hid from something terrible, something that wanted to hurt them. Jon was dressed all in black, crusted in snow. The walls of Winterfell themselves were crumbling.

And her father wasn’t there. Her father was dead.

Not knowing if you could escape anything in a dream, Arya turned and ran.

As she ran through the woods she could smell iron. There were men close, men who had strayed far from their fires. Her cousins were close, too, all those she had gathered to her. The hunt was on. Soon she would have meat enough for all.

The forest and its scent of iron and blood in amongst the soil was but a quick, sharp impression. Arya woke almost immediately, eyes stinging. It was smoke coming in through the open window. It had to be.

She wanted to go home.

 

\---

 

Even before Volantis faded into the distance behind them, Arya started asking the sailors about Qarth. She’d never learned about Qarth at Winterfell, or heard of it in King’s Landing. Since she’d come to the Free Cities she’d heard a few sailors mention it. When they did, it was always in a way that suggested it was very far away.

They told her Qarth was big – not as big as Volantis, but richer, and less welcoming. That alarmed Arya, since the Volantenes had not been friendly. Qarth had three walls, the sailors said, red sandstone and granite like Winterfell and black marble, but foreigners were kept outside. Westerosi foreigners were kept to one edge of the harbor.

And it was far, far away. Not Asshai far away, but still a long way. She really wasn’t going to be back home in a year. She kicked viciously at her tiny cabin’s wall, furious with herself for agreeing to come. For wanting to come. She didn’t want to meet the stupid queen, even if she did have dragons, she wanted to go _home._

She didn’t go outside all day, except when she needed to relieve herself. She didn’t want to see how the ship was heading east. There was a good breeze for it. Arya hated that too. There was only going to be more and more ocean for _weeks_ now. She didn’t couldn’t stand to look at it.

It was difficult the next day, and the next. On the third, Barristan waylaid her when she went to get food and said, “You seem to be in ill spirits, child.”

Usually he pretended she didn’t exist when she was in a mood like this. Barristan didn’t know much about children, Arya had long since realized, especially girls. “I’m not in ill spirits,” she said.

“If you say so.”

“I’m not.”

He looked at her askance, and then away, in the direction the ship had come. West. She wondered if he wanted to go back to Westeros too. “I hadn’t expected to come so far,” he said. “I thought she would be near Volantis, perhaps. When we heard her husband had died, I was sure that she was either dead or returning west.”

 _Why would she?_ Arya thought. _Daenerys Targaryen doesn’t have any family._ Then she remembered that Daenerys wanted to be queen, or so Barristan and the fat man said. 

Arya had seen the Iron Throne; it didn’t even look comfortable. She didn’t know why anyone would want it. _I hope Joffrey cuts himself on it,_ she thought. _Cersei too._

“Does she really have dragons?” Arya asked.

“So they say.” 

It sounded stupid to Arya. She said so.

“You and your sister had direwolves, did you not?”

That was different. Everyone knew there were still direwolves. They just lived north of the Wall, that was all. All the dragons had been dead for years. Everyone knew that too. So obviously it was stupid for the queen to have dragons.

She wondered what they looked like. They had to be like the monsters in the room under the Red Keep, with huge sharp black teeth and gaping eyes. She remembered how frightened of them she had been, before she told herself not to be. It was hard to imagine those skulls as living things. She told herself she wouldn’t be scared of the dragons, either.

“I still have a direwolf,” she said. “She’s just lost.” One day she’d get Nymeria back, and they’d go to Winterfell together. 

Ser Barristan was smiling at her. She’d seen men who smiled at her like that before, like she was _funny_ , like she was just a little girl who didn’t know any better. “She _is_ ,” Arya insisted. What did Barristan know about direwolves, anyway?

The old knight changed the topic. “I’ve been meaning to ask, Lady Arya,” he said. It had to be a serious question because he called her _lady_. “Why did your brother give you that sword?”

Arya frowned, staring out at the endless ocean. “We were watching Bran and Tommen practice in the yard,” she said, a hard lump forming in her throat. She swallowed it. “I said I could do just as good as Bran could. Jon told me I was too skinny to lift a longsword.”

Out of the corner of her eye she saw Ser Barristan eye her arms. “He was likely right. Jon, you say? He was the one to give you that sword?”

“Yes.” She missed him most of all her brothers. He was probably the one furthest away from her, too, all the way at the Wall. When she got back to Winterfell, he wouldn’t be there. The thought was a sad one.

“Forgive me, I cannot remember the names of all your brothers and sisters. Your lord father was most fortunate in regards to children, as I recall. Jon is…which brother?”

“He’s my older brother,” Arya said. She didn’t want to call him a bastard, not to Ser Barristan. Jon was her brother, plain and simple. “The next oldest, after Robb.”

“You must miss him.”

Arya couldn’t even _say_ it. She missed them all so badly. Even Sansa. She just nodded.

“I will see you home as soon as I can.” He’d said that before. Arya still didn’t know if she trusted his words entirely, especially so far from home. What choice did she have, though? “We will arrive in Qarth soon enough, and from there the worst should be over. You should only get closer to Winterfell afterwards.”

Maybe, Arya thought. Or maybe Daenerys Targaryen would go to Asshai.

 

\---

 

The days drifted by. One blended into the next in a blur of blue sea and blue sky. It was sunny almost every day, and the sailors said they’d never seen such fair sailing weather, but Arya almost didn’t care. She’d lost track of the days not far out of Volantis.

She wanted green trees, like she saw in her dreams sometimes. She wanted grey skies and grey walls. She wanted to smell smoke and snow on the air, not salt and tar. It felt like she was being stretched away from Winterfell. Like she’d never go back, not ever.

When the call of _land!_ went up, Arya dashed to the side of the ship. There _was_ land there, she saw. It was just a smudge on the horizon, but it was there. They’d be there so soon, and then they could find the stupid queen and they could all go back to Westeros.

“I want to go ashore,” Arya said to Ser Barristan. The same conversation they’d had before Tyrosh, and before Volantis. She always asked, in case he just left her.

This time, Barristan hesitated. “You may go, if you dress as a boy. I do not yet know what sort of woman Daenerys Targaryen is.”

Dress as a boy. Arya didn’t mind that. It made sense not to be Arya Stark for a little while. She didn’t want to be locked up in some manse again. It felt safer, too. She hadn’t forgotten how some men had looked at her when she was on the streets in King’s Landing. Some had looked at her that way in Myr, and Tyrosh, and Volantis. It made her skin crawl in any city.

The Qartheen market was huge, almost as big as that of Volantis. Its horseshoe shape made it seem far smaller, though, more crowded. There were just as many bright colours and strange foods. Things like that had excited her back in Tyrosh, and when she saw Pentos, but now she just wanted to go home.

Trailing behind Barristan and Belwas, she felt very small. She hated feeling small. She hated this place. She hated Daenerys Targaryen too. Everyone. Everything.

Barristan turned to glance at her, as he did, just to check she was there, and sighed when he saw her face. “You make for a sullen boy today,” he said.

Arya glared at him. Truth be told, she _was_ feeling sullen. Her mother would be angry with her if she knew how Arya was behaving. Lady Catelyn would also be angry if she knew Arya was pretending to be a boy. She reminded herself of that. Maybe if she thought about how angry her mother would be with her, she wouldn’t want to go home so much. After moons of thinking things like that she still couldn’t manage it.

As they walked through the markets, they learned more about the city of Qarth. What Arya could see over the walls looked beautiful, but as foreigners they weren’t allowed in. When they heard that, Arya asked, “But wouldn’t that mean the queen is in this part of the city?”

“Perhaps,” Barristan said, “But I think we will find that many exceptions can be made for a woman with dragons.”

He was right, too. Unlike in the Free Cities or Volantis, here in Qarth they talked about Daenerys Targaryen a _lot_ , and nobody could agree on anything but her youth and the number of her dragons. Some people said she was beautiful, others called her a Dothraki whore. Some people said she was as vicious as her dragons, others said she was a meek girl ruled by her Westerosi knight.

“She has a _knight_?” Arya asked.

“Aye,” said Barristan, who looked as if he’d bitten into a lemon. After weeks at sea Arya had got to know that particular look. “Queen Daenerys is accompanied by a knight. A Northman, even, by the name of Mormont.”

The name sounded familiar, and Arya tried to remember her heraldry lessons. “I don’t know anything about the Mormonts,” she confessed. 

Barristan looked at her. “You would have been very young when your lord father went to take Ser Jorah’s head. Lord Mormont, he was, at the time.”

Arya’s eyes widened. “My father wanted to cut off his head? Why?” This Jorah Mormont must have done something bad, if her father had gone to execute him.

“He sold some poachers into slavery,” Barristan said. “Ser Jorah fled the king’s justice rather than face his crimes with honour.”

“Then my father was _right_ to go and chop off his head,” Arya said fiercely, remembering all the slaves she’d seen in Tyrosh and in Volantis. None of the smallfolk around Winterfell ever looked that beaten. Or even at the Red Keep, even the ones who had to wait on Joffrey. Nobody made them get tattoos. “Someone should do that to _all_ the slavers!”

Fear sparked in Barristan’s eyes for a second, and he gestured to her for quiet. “This place is just as much a slave city as Volantis,” he said in a hushed voice. “The practice is despicable, yes, but if you get yourself killed now it gains nothing. We are here to find the queen and enlist her aid in getting you home.”

 _It’s still wrong_ , Arya thought, though the other thought, the one about never getting home, stayed her tongue. If Daenerys Targaryen listened to someone who sold slaves, someone who her father thought should die, she wasn’t going to like Daenerys Targaryen. Arya decided that right then.

 

—

 

“There,” Barristan said at last. “That must be them.”

Arya looked, but Barristan shoved her head down by cuffing her lightly across the ear. She scowled up at him, and saw his regret written on his face. He didn’t like hitting girls. “My apologies,” the old knight said. “Staring will give us away.”

They weren’t being that stealthy in the first place. Even Arya could tell that. Strong Belwas stood out anywhere, and even she and Barristan were conspicuous. “She’s short,” Arya said, because she’d got a good look. “And she dresses strangely.”

She’d expected the Targaryen queen to dress like her own mother, somehow. Or like Sansa. She’d expected long silk skirts, proper slippers, and flowing curls. Daenerys Targaryen had a shiny braid and wore vest, trousers, and sandals. She had a _dagger_. But then, Arya reasoned, the queen didn’t have a mother to tell her she shouldn’t wear a dagger.

“She’s dressed as one of the Dothraki,” Barristan said. “See her guards.”

“Little queen,” Belwas said. “Wears a bell in her braid. Horse boys tell Belwas, bells are for victory.” He'd told them all often enough on the way to Qarth how the Dothraki he'd killed all jingled. He seemed very proud of it.

“There’s Mormont,” Barristan said.

Arya looked. Arya looked hard. Mormont didn’t look so evil at first glance. Mostly he looked hot and uncomfortable in all his wool and mail. He looked tired, and he was going bald. Aside from his coat of arms, which Arya had definitely seen before even if she wouldn’t have been able to say it belonged to the Mormonts, he didn’t look any different from most of the Westerosi knights Arya had seen. Or much different from the sellswords.

Belwas kept staring. Barristan didn’t cuff _him_ on the ear, Arya thought resentfully. Just because he was tall. And big. And looked like a lizard-lion, while Barristan had a beard and a robe like the old sorcerers in the stories Old Nan used to tell them, only he was broader across the shoulders than she thought most sorcerers would be.

Now Daenerys and her knight were looking at an ugly brass platter. She was negotiating over it, like any number of merchants would. She didn’t sound like a queen, telling the brass merchant that his wares were rubbish. But Syrio Forel’s voice told her once again, _look with your eyes_ , and Arya could _see_ Daenerys’ bodyguards. She was the one in charge. Not the knight.

Someone stepped in front of Daenerys, and beside her, Barristan gasped. Then he wasn’t beside Arya at all, but reaching forward to smack something out of a Qartheen’s hand with his long staff. Ser Jorah pushed past Daenerys, who fell to her knees, and Ser Barristan brought the staff down on something Arya couldn’t see. Around them, the Qartheen were starting to shout their alarm.

“Your grace, a thousand pardons,” Ser Barristan said. “It’s dead. Did I break your hand?”

“I don’t think so,” Daenerys Targaryen said.

“I had to knock it away,” he told her, and then all the bodyguards were on him. 

They put a knife to his throat. “Khaleesi, we saw him strike you,” one said. “Would you see the colour of his blood?” There was a _knife_ at his _throat_. She wasn’t going to watch, not ever again.

“Don’t touch him!” Arya shouted, and leapt forward, Needle in hand. She didn’t even know who she intended to strike at.

One of the guards hit her away, much less gently than Barristan had cuffed her. Needle went spinning from her hand as he grabbed her wrist and held her just as immobile as Barristan was being held. Just like Barristan had held her back on the day her father was killed.

“No,” Daenerys Targaryen ordered. Her voice was steady and sure, and to Arya's relief, she put herself firmly in front of Barristan. “This man was defending me.”

“The boy was not,” the man holding Arya said.

“The boy was defending his companion,” Daenerys said.

Arya tried to escape that grip, but the man had her too tight. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Mormont return to Daenerys’ side. “These men attacked you,” he said, and glanced at Arya. He did a double-take. “And that, your grace, that is one of Ned Stark’s sons.”

Daenerys Targaryen’s purple eyes widened with shock.

“I’m not Ned Stark’s son,” Arya said, “I’m his _daughter_.”

That didn’t seem to make anything any better.

 

—

 

“So Illyrio Mopatis sends me Ser Barristan the Bold, late of the Kingsguard, a Meerenese pit fighter, and Eddard Stark’s daughter to assist me in my conquest of the Seven Kingdoms,” Daenerys said, once they had all returned to the quarters she was using. Arya couldn’t pronounce the name of the man who owned it. All around them there were people packing up. “Your arrival is timely.”

Now that nobody was going to stop her from looking, Arya stared at Daenerys. She didn’t look like she could conquer anything. She was short, for one thing, and slim. Arya didn’t think she’d know how to use the dagger she wore. Of the dragons she was supposed to have, Arya had seen no sign.

“We have been in Qarth but a few days,” Barristan said.

“All the same, ser. Timely.”

She smiled. Even Arya’s mother would have said Daenerys was beautiful, looking at that expression, despite the fact she still wore trousers and obviously spent a lot of time in the sun.

“I would offer you my services,” Barristan said. He didn’t look best pleased. He had said he’d wanted time to take the measure of Daenerys first. But now, since Arya had been recognised, he felt he had to give his true name. There weren’t many who would believe Illyrio Mopatis would send Eddard Stark’s daughter most of the way across the world with only an ageing squire and a pit fighter for an escort.

“And I would accept them,” Daenerys said graciously. “Any king - or queen - would be mad to refuse you.”

Barristan winced slightly at her words, and Arya wondered if it was Joffrey who bothered him, or the old king, Daenerys’ father.

“Your grace,” Barristan said, “There is but one more matter.” He looked pointedly in Arya’s direction at that. “She is indeed Arya Stark of Winterfell, second daughter of the late Lord Eddard.”

“The _late_ Lord Eddard?” Mormont asked.

“Lord Eddard Stark was executed for a traitor not long before we set out for Pentos,” Barristan said. Arya dropped her gaze to the floor for a second. She didn’t want to think about that. Then she looked up, because it was Mormont that should have lost his head. Her father had done nothing wrong. Arya had nothing to be ashamed of.

A glance passed between Mormont and Daenerys that Arya could not read. “And Lady Arya?” Daenerys asked.

“In the crowd watching, with me, having escaped her pursuers. I swore to her that I would return her to her lady mother.”

The would-be queen looked at her as well, then. There was pity in her eyes. “How old are you, Lady Arya?” she asked.

Daenerys wasn’t frightening, Arya told herself. Even if she said she was a queen, even if she really did have dragons. She wasn’t much older than Sansa, and Sansa wasn’t scary either. “Nine,” Arya said. She would not let her voice shake or her eyes tear up. She would not. Not even if they kept talking about her father.

Barristan added, “On behalf of her lord father, who resigned the Handship in protest when King Robert ordered your assassination, I would beg you not to use her as a hostage.”

“I accepted your service,” Daenerys said, with a note of frost in her voice, “So I must accept your oaths to Lady Arya as well. When we return to Westeros, I will see her returned to her lady mother. For your sake, ser, and not that of Eddard Stark.”

“Thank you, your grace,” Barristan said.

Arya could stay silent no longer. “When are we going back?” she asked.

“Hold your tongue, girl,” Mormont said, but Daenerys raised a hand to silence him.

“As soon as the tides allow, Lady Arya,” she said. “We have all been away from home too long.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for bearing with me. Fiction's been extra difficult for me lately, and I'm just now starting to make headway again. So really, thanks.
> 
> And yeah, I know the timelines for this fic are messed up, but I'll suspend disbelief if you will.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! Hearts to everyone! 
> 
> (And if you're wondering about Disengagement, I'm on POV 3 of 5. Work continues.)


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